School Nurse Saves Student Who Vaped Fentanyl-Laced Weed, Biden Urges Mexican Pres. Stop Cartels Importing Opioids

A frightening incident involving what was thought to be a fentanyl-laced vape pen occurred at New Rochelle High School.

Thanks to an alert school nurse, the teenager is alive and fully recovered today.

What Happened: A high school student collapsed suddenly after using a cannabis vape pen, which police now suspect was laced with the deadly opioid fentanyl.

See Also: Gov. Hochul Discusses Opioid Addiction In State Of The State

The school nurse quickly administered the opioid antidote Narcan, saving the teen’s life.

The question is: how did fentanyl end up inside a vaping cartridge?

"My guess is why would you add fentanyl or anything else other than to give the impression of a high and lowering the amount of real THC you have in the product,” said Arnaud Dumas de Rauly, CEO of vaporizer technologies company The Blinc Group, by CBS New York.

De Rauly, who is also a chairman of the organization working on safety standards for vaping, added that 95% of the current vaping market is illegal.

Recent studies show that vaping is the most popular method of cannabis delivery among all adolescents in the U.S.

What Can Parents Do?

Ask their kids to buy substances from legal markets, De Rauly advised.

Tell them to “go into a legal dispensary because you know the product has been tested.”

Although this is something many parents don’t want to hear, the message is critical: fentanyl is a deadly drug and is now ending up in cannabis.

How Deadly Is Fentanyl?

The synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin, is now the No. 1 cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49. It kills nearly 200 Americans per day. Of the estimated 107,622 deadly drug overdoses in America in 2021, two-thirds were from fentanyl.

Since July 2022, U.S. authorities have seized some 2,200 pounds of illegally made fentanyl per month. Even so, feds estimate they’re capturing less than 10% of the fentanyl coming in from Mexico.

The rise of fentanyl essentially came about as a result of the crackdown on the US opioid industry after millions of Americans who’d become addicted to prescription pain meds began to find them difficult to obtain. But the Mexican cartels stepped in to fill the vacuum.

The issue of fentanyl flooding into the U.S. came up in President Joe Biden’s recent meeting in Mexico City at the American Leaders’ Summit with his Mexican counterpart President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Biden specifically asked López Obrador for help in tackling illicit fentanyl shipments to the US by dismantling the drug cartels.

A step in that direction was seen last week when El Chapo’s son and leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which is known to be a major producer and exporter of fentanyl to the U.S.
Additionally, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy in a recent speech said he’s intending to roll out a “nation-leading” plan to make Narcan available for free and anonymously to anyone who walks into a pharmacy. He said the plan could save countless lives.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul also hasn’t forgotten mental health problems and the opioid crisis in a speech this week.

Hochul said no matter the age or the problem. She said that the state will be “working with federal and local partners, to stop the flow of illicit drugs into our communities and address new deadly additives like xylazine. We’ll send resources to localities that are working to shut down fentanyl suppliers.”

Xylazine is a sedative found in illicit opioids.

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Photo: Courtesy of Joaquin Corbalan P on Shutterstock